One of the latest buzzwords to contaminate this great language of ours is ‘consumerisation’. According to many marketeers, it defines the future of end user computing.

As with all good marketing terms, various definitions exist because ambiguity leaves more room for creative product positioning. Fundamentally, however, employees bringing their personal kit to work with them and expecting to hook it up to the network is at least part of the whole consumerisation thing. Think iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, and Android based devices in particular.

Lots of people think the ‘bring your own’ equipment idea is great. Users get to use the toys they want select the equipment best suited to their needs, and are therefore able to show off the latest bling be more productive in their work. And as an added bonus the company can save money because employees foot the bill for a lot of the stuff they use to do their job. Unless of course the company provides an allowance, in which case this represents an incentive to attract the right talent during the recruitment process, i.e. spotty adolescents the progressive next generation of workers and status obsessed more discerning managers and professionals .

Many Reg readers have told us in the past, however, that consumerisation is not a trend they welcome. Phrases such as “worst nightmare” and “over my dead body” have been used with reference to unmanaged devices being hooked up to corporate systems. Yet at the same time, we hear that IT people are sometimes as enthusiastic as others to bring their own.

The truth is that consumer electronics are now extremely accessible, as are public web based services that can also be used for work purposes. So whatever your stance on consumerisation, it’s hard to ignore the increasing pressure IT departments are going to be put under to accommodate user wishes and desires.

Against this background, we want your help to get under the skin of this topic. It’s a very complex area though, so to avoid creating yet more simplistic one-dimensional research, we have ended up with a bit of a monster survey. We’re not going to lie to you, this is a big S.O.B. But we reckon it should get you thinking, so if you are up for it, click below to get going. We really appreciate your views whichever way you lean on this debate.

You can get stuck in right here.